Advice to CEOs from Other CEOs

Tag Archives: Margins

Situation: A small company has a parts supplier for product that they sell to their most important customer. That customer’s specs are “copy exact” on components for existing products; also, their new products are usually based on existing components. The supplier significantly raised prices on the parts supplied to the company. How you respond to a price increase from a supplier?

Advice from the CEOs:

This is an extremely sensitive situation. One solution is to not to rock the boat. The reality is that the company needs the parts, and it will take a lot of effort to replace them with parts from an alternate vendor. Just continue the relationship. Quit worrying about it and milk it for as long as it lasts.

Find out what caused the supplier to raise prices. The supplier needs to understand that to preserve the company’s margins they may have to raise prices to the final customer. This may threaten both the company’s and the supplier’s business with the customer.

Make sure that the supplier understands the company’s costs: office, salaries, equipment, maintenance, and local regulations that are unfriendly to business and difficult to deal with. Ask them to reconsider or reduce the price increase.

Assure that the supplier understands the value that the company provides and the importance of this collaboration to the business and profits and bottom lines of both companies. Leverage this value to get the price that the company needs.

Renegotiate the relationship to assure that supplier can’t go around go around the company and sell directly to the final customer.

Situation: A CEO is in conversation about combining with another company. One option is for the other company to absorb his company. What are the pros and cons of this option? Are there other options that will better serve both owners and employees? How do you improve a business model?

Advice from the CEOs:

The company has a great model today. The option under consideration looks like a double compromise – it alters both the company’s strengths and its fundamental business model.

The company’s strength is lean and mean – moving from a hourly/fee-based model with high utilization to a salary-based model, as the option on the table proposes, will change this. It also changes the dynamics of who will work for the company.

The magic of the current model is that it attracts top talent by offering them the best of two worlds: high individual billing rates with ready access to billable hours. Over the long term this has also made it very profitable.

Explore an alternative – how does the company transform its existing business model while retaining its strengths – lean, mean, low overhead – while transforming the model so that it builds “products,” perception, and recognition for the company?

A longer-term alternative is to look for a financial acquisition of the company. It has good net margins, good cash flow, and even spins out cash. This is valuable to a financial buyer.

What is the role of the CEO right now? Another CEO was asked “Do you have a job or a company? What happens if you leave? If the company dies, you have a job. But it may not be necessary to change much to become a company.”

Situation: A service company has developed the capacity to produce and sell a product. The CEO is considering two options for this new opportunity: create a separate entity for the new business or run the businesses in parallel under the current umbrella. How do you best exploit a new opportunity?

Advice from the CEOs:

Option 1: Create separate entity for the new business while the existing business continues in parallel.

How big is the potential win? The current company competes successfully for about 10% of the market. The new capability would allow the company to potentially compete for 100% of a larger market.

How different are the two opportunities? The current business requires specialized talent – it is a low volume, high margin business. The new opportunity is the reverse – high potential volume but lower margin. It is a more generic market with fewer specialized needs.

The separate entity option provides the most flexibility. The current model already functions well. A spin-off provides an additional option without losing what already exists.

Bring in another individual to develop and run the new entity. It’s a different game and requires a different focus. However, it will be a great opportunity for the right person.

The spin-off model will be more sustainable under separate management than under the current company.

Option 2: Operate both businesses under a single entity.

This option looks like a double compromise – it alters both the company’s current strengths and the fundamental business model.

A long-term alternative is to look for a financial acquisition for the current company. It produces good net margins, has good cash flow, a and spins off cash. This can be valuable to a financial buyer.

Situation: Revenue for a product and craft business has been slipping. At the same time, their competition has been disappearing. It is clear to the CEO that demand is and will continue to be present because of the market that the company serves. The question is how to maintain the profitability to survive long-term. How do you build in a declining market?

Advice from the CEOs:

The keys to recovery in a business like this will be in two areas: improving sales and increasing margins.

To increase sales the choices are more aggressive marketing and selling to existing customers or creating new markets like previous generations did when they started the business. Consider services that you could bundle with your products to augment the ways that customers use them. It will be the responsibility of your sales and marketing teams to demonstrate these product/service bundles to increase sales both to new and existing customers. This will help to solve the revenue slippage.

The other side is ongoing efforts to reduce cost which will, in turn, improve your margins. Costs can be reduced in creative ways that are not obvious. These include improvements in purchasing, reduction of waste, recycling of component materials, and inventory controls. It will be the responsibility of your production, purchasing and inventory management teams to develop these solutions. Assure that these teams are recognized and rewarded for their solutions.

Look at the segments of your product offering. Are they declining at the same rate or are there differences? This will help you to focus your efforts, as a company, to grow market share even if the overall market is declining.

Other suggestions for increasing sales:

Take advantage of the craft trends. Do this with NEW talent – not tired talent.

Consider partnerships and collaborations.

Set up contests and craft classes.

Look at how other industries promote to the craft industry and follow their lead.